by Concita De Gregorio
(Translation)
I received a letter from New York from Valeria Orani, a theater woman, from Sardinia, great organizer and driving force of things that happen. The light emanating from her words fills my heart. It would be great, and maybe even easy, if we wanted it enough, if passionate people could work here too. I live in Rome, not in New York, and I’ve been watching the dismantlement of the Angelo Mai theater where, just days ago, Silvia Calderoni acted in two splendid Motus plays (which also went on tour all over the world). Dismantled. At the Vascello theater, the Miti Pretese, four great artists, presented a retrospective which should be scheduled everywhere (Festa di famiglia will still be played tonight and tomorrow afternoon, go see it if you can). And yet, it is so hard to find a place where one is available, when they are not shutting it down. I will share with you what Valeria wrote, hoping that her hope and strength will be contagious.
“Hi Concita. I’m reading you from the US. Italian American, better yet Italian New Yorker: New York is a different America, another image in the puzzle that is the US. The letters you receive and your replies are, for those of us who are far away, a compass to understand Italy, manage our nostalgia and understand where we come from and what keeps us glued to our homeland, no matter what. I arrived in NYC in 2014, when I was no longer the youngest and as a single mother to a then-7-year-old son, leaving behind a comfortable and somewhat planned life. I wanted to tell you that, maybe, I made it. I found a house, I bought some furniture, and I enrolled my son in school.
He is now bilingual and in sixth grade, within a school system which is perfectly organized. I founded a company dedicated to contemporary culture, which creates a bridge between Italy and New York. I don’t feel like an immigrant nor like an expat, I am not running from my homeland. I just want to use all the tools at my disposal to feel like a global citizen, to be able to learn the very best and then be able to experiment in the field I love so much.
I live in New York, but I also live in Italy; I feel deeply European and I have a hard time understanding many of the aspects of this American civilization which appear to shape its thought and democracy as long as we live far from it. My process of dis-integration is an important cause, a drop in the sea of the survival of civilization. The awareness that we live in a world that changes all the more rapidly, globally connected and, at times, dangerously uniform.
My belief is that the way out is indeed being able to stay and take from one’s own uniqueness and value and make it available to those who have the talent to make beauty out of everything. I am a theater woman: out of 51 years of life, I spent some 33 between the stage and behind the scenes; a life in the life. Italy, art, culture, the choice to turn complaint into action, the chance to have a life to change a piece of the world. This is me today and, in this framework, I can say that maybe I made it.”